Origen's line-by-line exposition of Matthew 19-20: eunuchs for the kingdom, the rich young man, and the laborers in the vineyard.
Book 15 of Origen's Commentary on Matthew works through a dense stretch of the Gospel, from Jesus's saying on eunuchs "born so from their mother's womb" (Matthew 19:12) through the rich young man who claims to have kept the commandments, the camel and the needle's eye, and the parable of the laborers hired at different hours of the day (Matthew 20). Origen reads each episode on two levels at once, the plain bodily sense and a deeper spiritual one, and he is explicit about the stakes of getting the distinction wrong.
His opening move sets the tone for the whole book: he criticizes those who took Jesus's third kind of eunuch literally and "dared to render themselves eunuchs out of fear toward God,” arguing that this reading arises from taking a passage spoken in parables according to its letter alone. He then turns to the rich young man, probing why Jesus, who "loved him," still tells him to sell all he has, and to the proverb about the camel passing through a needle's eye, which Origen treats as a craftsman's image requiring exact, careful handling rather than casual moralizing.
The book's second half is given over to the parable of the workers called into the vineyard at the third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hours, and paid the same wage regardless of when they started. Origen reads the hours as stages in salvation history and in an individual soul's calling, and closes the parable, and the book, with an appeal to interpretive humility: he asks pardon from readers if he has not fully attained the parable's intention, leaving room for someone "wiser than we" to see further into it.
“For there are eunuchs who were born so from their mother's womb”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · read this chapter →
“some, supposing—as though it followed from the observed activity of the two bodily castrations—that the third too was bodily, dared to render themselves eunuchs out of fear”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · read this chapter →
“loved him," it seems he agreed that the man who had professed to have done what he professed had indeed fulfilled it”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · read this chapter →
“there are certain things done in the Law that require the craft of a needle-worker and a needle, so that one may, according to the wisdom of God, carry out the works of the craft he has taken up”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · read this chapter →
“ask pardon from those who read it, if we have not been able to attain, in a manner worthy of it, to the intention of what is written here”
— Commentary on Matthew, Book 15 · read this chapter →
Origen distinguishes the two kinds of eunuchs by nature or circumstance from the third kind, those who become eunuchs "for the kingdom of heaven," and argues the third must be understood spiritually, as a reasoned renunciation of desire, not a literal call to self-mutilation. He specifically criticizes people who took it bodily and harmed themselves, saying they erred by not noticing that Jesus spoke this too in parables.
Origen takes seriously the young man's claim to have kept the commandments, reading Jesus's love for him as recognition that he had genuinely fulfilled what was asked of him up to that point. The command to sell his possessions and give to the poor is then read as a further step toward wisdom, not a rebuke of a liar.
Origen treats the saying as an image drawn from a craftsman's precise work with needle and thread, using it to caution that the passage requires careful, exact handling rather than a loose moral point about wealth.
He reads the hours at which workers are called, third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh, as stages in the history of Israel and the nations being called to God, and also as stages within an individual life or soul. All receive the same wage regardless of when they were called, which Origen ties to God's own standard of justice rather than a human one of proportional pay.
Origen closes the book by explicitly asking pardon if he has not attained the true intention of the vineyard parable, and acknowledges that a wiser interpreter with a fuller gift of the Spirit might see further into it than he has.
Commentary on John, Book 1 · Commentary on John, Book 10 · Commentary on John, Book 2 · Commentary on John, Book 4 · Commentary on John, Book 5 · Commentary on John, Book 6 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 10 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 11 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 12 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 13 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 14 · Commentary on Matthew, Book 16